Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams can make a qualifying offer -- the average of the previous year's top 125 salaries -- to any impending free agent. This year's number is $13.3 million. If the player declines the one-year deal, he can still re-sign with the team at a different price.

Should the player sign elsewhere, the team that lost the free agent receives a compensation Draft pick made between the first and second rounds. The compensation pick is determined by reverse order of winning percentage, and the signing team loses its first-round pick. The top 10 picks of the Draft are protected, however, so any team holding a top 10 pick forfeits its second-round selection if it signs a player who received a qualifying offer. The Pirates' No. 9 pick is also safe, as it is compensation for failing to sign their first-round pick this year.

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Seems utterly retarded to me. Why the **** should, for example, the Yankees be "compensated" for Nick Swisher signing elsewhere after his contract with them ran out?? And who the hell's gonna give up a 1st-round pick to sign him?

This seems like a horrible idea all around. Any player who declines an offer runs the risk of no one wanting to sign him because of the draft-pick loss. Of course, players will realize that, & may take the offer, so it seems like a risk for teams to offer it.

The previous system was that Free Agents deemed to be in the top 20% at their positions garnered the prior franchise's first-round pick (outside the top 10 or 16), the next 20% got a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds only. And the whole "qualifying offer" idea wasn't around. The new system is far more lenient towards teams signing expensive Free Agents...

The idea was never that to be explicitly "fair," but to help level the playing field between the big-market teams who tend to accumulate the top free agents and the smaller-market teams who consistently lose their top players to free agency after 6 years.

Yes, I am oblivious to this ****; I don't pay any attention to whatever's in the deals players/owners/whoevers make.

I think it's absurd that *any* team gets compensation for failing to re-sign someone when their contract runs out.

This rule still seems quite detrimental to small-market teams, imo. They can make a qualifying offer, which will be a high percentage of their payroll (by definition), or lose a 1st-rounder by signing anyone offered a qualifying offer by another club (in theory, that pick is worth more to a small-market team than a big spender).

If this is really a response to big-market teams signing the best free agents, it's a nonsensical one. Small-market teams would only be compensated for the loss of a star if they risked making the quality offer to the player. If the player accepted, the team's payroll would take a big hit. If they decide the risk is too high, they receive no compensation.

The qualifying offer rule is new, basically raises the bar on who can get compensation. It's still better for small-market teams, but the number of players you can just offer $13.3 million to and be confident they'll reject it (or thrilled if they take it) is admittedly limited. Josh Hamilton and Greinke this year will qualify, and they might be it. Maybe Lohse.

Ya, I don't see the argument. Teams have to decide if they want to take the risk. Whereas in the past a guy may have been guaranteed to garner his team compensation, now the team has to make a choice - do you throw an offer out, banking on the guy not taking it in order to get a pick? With a guy like Hamilton, that's easy - one year at $13.3M would be a steal for Texas if he accepts, so it's a no-brainer. I realize the Yankees have money to go around, but is Swisher worth $13.3M or could they find an equivalent option cheaper? To me, that one is a bit of a risk (though not huge) for the Yanks.

My question is "what's the point," though? You're correct that that risk isn't enormous for the Yankees. However, think of a team like Oakland. If they make a qualifying offer to someone, they risk the player accepting and taking up like 25%+ of their payroll the next season. If they decide that risk is too high, they receive no compensation whatsoever when that player goes elsewhere.

According to this page, OAK's salary was just under $50M lastseason:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/salaries/_/name/oak/oakland-athletics

The Yankees gave quality offers to Kuroda, Swisher, and Soriano yesterday. If all 3 players accepted, that would be roughly 20% of their 2012 payroll. If OAK did that, that would be roughly 80% of their 2012 payroll. Huge difference. In other words, teams like the Yankees can afford to make more quality offers. If the players accept, they can afford it. If not, they get a compensation pick. Small-market teams must choose between making offers that would cripple their payroll if accepted, and receive no compensation if a quality offer isn't made.

I get that, but it goes both ways. Now the big market teams actually have to make a choice, instead of just letting guys go and collecting picks.

Under the old system, Oakland could let their guy go and get picks, but so could freespending teams like the Yankees. If a guy is worth $13.3M, small market teams will pay it - it's only a one-year deal and won't set the team back.

A) The CBA is an agreement between parties that want different things.
B) Players don't want teams to get compensation picks because it can drive the players' stock down on an open market (i.e., if a team has to give up more than the $$ in the contract to a new player (in the form of a pick), it is detrimental to the player).
C) Owners want compensation picks.
D) The players decided that this new type of compensation will negatively impact fewer players (see B), and said OK.

I wonder what the owners' vot looked like, though, as this new deal (imo) skews picks toward larger-market teams.

" If a guy is worth $13.3M, small market teams will pay it - it's only a one-year deal and won't set the team back."

Suppose OAK had their 2012 payroll ($50M) but had three really good players going to free agency this year. Under the old system, they would simply get 3 compensation picks if the guys signed elsewhere. Under the new system, the only way to get 3 picks is by making three quality offers (offering $40M to 3 players). That CAN set the team back, because if all 3 players accepted, that would be 80% of their payroll on 3 players (assuming they kept the same payroll next season. If not, it forces them to increase their budget!).

Orlando Hudson was a Type A a few seasons ago. Couldn't find a deal because no one wanted to give up a pick for him. Had to take a substantial pay cut just to get a job. Lots of RP were in the same boat. It is for the players, either the team has to pay them the average of the top 125 contracts for a season or let them go. And the player has to be on the team for the entire year, so Greinke wouldn't be eligible because he was traded for midseason.

They gave this to the players in the last CBA to get something else of value for the clubs. But there were teams majorly taking advantage of he system as it was. It's a good change, IMO.

Small market teams were also given free picks in a competitive balance lottery, and this helps teams with high second round picks get better players as there will be less compensation round picks in between.

Posted by Jtpsops on 11/3/2012 5:05:00 PM (view original):Ya, I don't see the argument. Teams have to decide if they want to take the risk. Whereas in the past a guy may have been guaranteed to garner his team compensation, now the team has to make a choice - do you throw an offer out, banking on the guy not taking it in order to get a pick? With a guy like Hamilton, that's easy - one year at $13.3M would be a steal for Texas if he accepts, so it's a no-brainer. I realize the Yankees have money to go around, but is Swisher worth $13.3M or could they find an equivalent option cheaper? To me, that one is a bit of a risk (though not huge) for the Yanks.

Let's clarify something here - teams were never just guaranteed compensation - if a player was classified as Type A or Type B, you still had to offer them arbitration to get compensation. That's essentially the same as what's being done now, except arbitration is going to lead to a different figure for each player, and now there's a single standard across the board. Teams and players know the rules of arbitration well enough to know roughly what a player is going to get. If they didn't really want to re-sign a player, they always had to weigh whether or not the player would accept arbitration, and sometimes they didn't offer it. I remember years ago the Phillies got stuck because they offered Kevin Millwood arbitration thinking he'd be worth much more on the FA market and he wound up accepting.

Basically, these changes are going to limit the overall number of players that command compensation, and it also decreases the amount of the compensation (used to be you would actually get the pick the signing team forfeited in addition to the sandwich round pick, now that pick just goes away). Basically you aren't going to see teams getting compensation for set-up men and marginal closers anymore, among other examples.